Quick Links

FOX News is faux news

Posted: July 15, 2011 - 11:08pm

Savannah

Barbara Kelly

Lowcountry Liberal

On Father’s Day morning, I turned on the television and tuned into FOX News. I had become so sick of this channel everywhere I went, from doctor’s offices to car dealerships to even my own gym that I thought I would check it out. Usually I don’t get my news from television and prefer online newspapers and articles. “FOX and Friends” was on, and the interesting thing to me was the apparel of the commentators. Two men were dressed in jackets, ties, and dress shirts. The one woman looked like she was either on her way to a cocktail party or had not had time to get dressed that morning. Her extremely skimpy red dress was so short she looked a little like someone in an R-rated movie, and so low cut she had to sit very straight between the two men. Well, since FOX News is a cable and satellite company owned by Fox Entertainment Group, a subsidiary of News Corp., Rupert Murdoch’s company, perhaps I should not have been surprised.

I knew from a Pew Research Poll of 2009 that it was the most ideological of all channels, and that much of what is presented as news is not accurate, but if you want to advertise yourself as “fair and balanced” it might be a good idea to have a dress code as well. I also knew that during the health care debate commentators got a memo telling them to use the term government option, not public option, because the public was favorable to public options if those words were used.

Rupert Murdoch, a man worth $6.3 billion dollars, came from Australia by way of Britain to the U.S. in 1973. In 1996 he started the FOX News Channel, and in 2007 bought the Wall Street Journal. He believes in complete free markets, unified public policy positions (his), and opposition to his perceived liberal bias in the media. In 2005 he hired Roger Ailes, a consultant for Nixon, George H.W. Bush, and an advisor to George W. Bush after 9/11, who wrote a memo saying the American people would be patient if the harshest possible measures were taken. I don’t know if he said that this meant Afghanistan, not Iraq. But we are still living with the consequences of that unnecessary war.

I tuned in again the next day, and the same two well dressed men sat on either side of the woman in another red dress. This one was not quite so revealing, and they were talking about waivers that had been granted to companies about the Affordable Care Act. One of the men said that around 14,000 waivers had been granted, and I knew this number was way off. But for a relentlessly activist 24-hour propaganda channel, who cares? They didn’t. About 10 minutes later, one of the men said that the number was actually 1,400, 10 times less than previously stated. A misplaced comma, as he claimed? Or a deliberate attempt to deceive the people tuning in with their morning coffee. Anyone not watching and listening carefully might not have heard the correction. And from what I have seen, people who watch and get their news from FOX News are definitely not discriminating listeners looking for the truth. So this channel provides them with what they want.